Mamoru Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers

When I first saw the trailer for The Sky Crawlers, a movie by Mamoru Oshii, the guy who made the cyberpunk classic Ghost in the Shell, I thought: eh, he’s gone in for some kind of historical deal about fighter pilots. Pretty, but come on! More ghosts! More shells! Dude only makes a movie about once every 5 years as it is.
This is because I do not speak Japanese. When I actually tracked down a plot synopsis (there’s a long, thoughtful one here) I found out that what I was watching was something very different: a story about a race of ageless adolescents, the Kildren, who are created to wage an endless, meaningless aerial war against each other for the entertainment of humanity. Sort of like Ender’s Game meets Never Let Me Go, whereupon they go play Ace Combat 6.

I really want to see this. I gather it’s premiering this Friday, but I don’t know how wide of a release it’s getting.